


Oscillation

by GideonGraystairs



Series: 24 Fics In 24 Days Challenge [16]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5691811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GideonGraystairs/pseuds/GideonGraystairs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a difference between the two of you, you see. He will always walk two steps behind you, trailing in your shadow and clinging to the scraps you throw his way because he's too kind, too loving of you and loathing of himself, to ever tell you how you've hurt him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oscillation

This is him: Quiet breaths of hitches and catching.  Black clothes worn to grey, full of holes much like the ones he feels in his soul.  A raging war of silence behind guarded blue eyes, more than just two sides clashing against each other in a fit of uncertainty and hesitation, of want and need, of knowledge and care.  A song so soft it can’t be heard over all the others that fill the air, hopeful highs and despairing lows, a bass note of constant worry and a melody of pleading desperation.

Reserved, shy, and words that sink deep into a core that thinks they don’t fit it, not quite, but will never say that aloud to the ones who have assigned him such labels.  Loyal, loving, trusting, hopeful and traits that pound painfully through a heart that has long since accepted them as nothing but flaws.  Screams no one hears, reverberating off steel walls to cage them in with the rest of the things others can never be allowed to see.  Pounding on the concrete floor of the prison, echoing through a tired body with a desperation and self-hatred the world would never understand, never accept.

This is him: Hope and love he won’t allow himself to ever let his guard down around, always waiting for the punchline of the joke he’s so sure any happiness of his must be.  Nails torn to stubs, bleeding and aching as he moves but still getting shorter with every day that passes without a punchline in sight.  Hatred for nothing in the world but the one thing he was always meant to love; himself.  Anxiety and unsurety and a thousand things that drag him deeper into the murky depths of this hatred, one he will never be able to escape if he sinks too much further now.  He is shadows where there was meant to be light, silver where others seek gold.  He is a chasm of the cruelties in this world, a black hole to the supernova of those around him.  He is himself, and that’s something no one has ever once acknowledged.

This is you: Untamed grins and cat eyes so bright, so gold and so alive, there is nothing else like them in this world.  Flamboyant colours of an exuberant nature, tight and fitting to the form no one could ever see as anything but perfect.  Warmth of touches you so freely give, notes of a chorus that drowns out all others.

Open, accepting, and things you’ve always told yourself you are, despite how clear the lie sounds to those who’ve known you for more than one wild night.  Helpful, kind, honest, comforting and words you have constantly told yourself suit the bright flame burning unwaveringly at your very core.  Laughs of a dismissive genre, flicking people away with nothing more than your inability to truly care.  Clicking of heels on hardwood floor, striding in a different direction from the others who have fallen for you, abandoning them to see nothing but the dust you leave in your wake as you go with the preconceived notion that this is always their fault, never yours.

This is you:  Turn when things no longer suit your ever changing needs.  Leave when things are harder than they once were.  Fight when what they’ve asked for is a simple deed, nothing but words from your lips that they long to hear, to know, but that you still refuse to give.  Run when they’ve lost your interest, no matter how hard you’ll be slamming their now broken heart into the muddy dirt you’ve left them in.  Do not stay if things get difficult, if a problem arises, no matter how easily it could be solved.  Do not do anything but toy with their feelings, their hearts, no matter how cruel of a man you are for it.  Do not care, no matter how vicious it might make you not to.

There’s a difference between the two of you, you see.  He will always walk two steps behind you, trailing in your shadow and clinging to the scraps you throw his way because he’s too kind, too loving of you and loathing of himself, to ever tell you how you’ve hurt him, how cruel you are, how you have twisted a thousand knives into his already breaking heart and pulled them out too quickly, leaving him there to bleed to death even with the pressure you have placed on him to be nothing of what he is.  He will always believe you to be out of his league, despite the fact that you are the one who is so far behind him in class.

And you, you will always stomp over his patchwork soul without a care in the world and turn your eye away from what lurks in fading blue depths.  You will always forget it the moment you aren’t looking, will always be blind to how much he is broken, how much worse you have made him.  You will always expect things he can’t give, unreasonable actions that do not conform with the identity others like you have been stealing from him his whole life.  You will always be that twisting knife in his gut, that pulsing ache in his chest, that scalding burn in his soul.  You will always be grinding him into the dirt that you would fit so seamlessly into if you were to take a look in the mirror and acknowledge that the face staring back is not the one you have always petulantly believed yourself to have.

It could be different.  Did you know that?  You could fix this, you still have time, it’s not that hard.  All you’d need to do is not turn away, not laugh with veiled cruelty when he asks where you’ve come from.  All you’d need to do is look at him, for more than a fleeting moment, and see him for who he truly is.

It’s not hard, you know.  It’s so very easy to set things onto a different path such as this, to become the person you have always stubbornly thought yourself to be.  Helpful, kind, honest, comforting; they are not hard things to be.  Just look at him, really look, and acknowledge that you have been hindering him all along.  Accept him for who he has always believed he couldn’t allow himself to be and listen when he speaks.  He is wiser than you are, despite the years that stretch between you like a blackened tar of unanswered questions and refuted attempts to banish it.  Listen and you will learn.  Listen and do not turn him away when he asks after your beginnings, after what has made you who you are.

And if this is the path you choose, the path you turn yourself onto, you must not forget that.  The things that have made you who are must be cherished, held dearly to a heart that has long since changed beyond their teachings.  For they are precious mementos of a past you must never seek to erase.  Lose them and you will lose yourself.

This isn’t hard, not in the slightest.  You can change for the better so very easily.  Just look, listen, hold him close and do not push him away.  There’s still time, you know.  It’s not too late.  

And if you’re still not sure, still hesitant in taking this leap onto a different road, turn back and read the first part again.  I think you’ll find he’s not one you could ever bear to lose.


End file.
